It is estimated that the cost to bring a new drug to market is, on average, about $800 million. However, despite the large investment involved, assessing a medical treatment's potential for development and commercialization success is often elusive. Moreover, the health care industry is noted for having a culture that fosters an inefficient decision making process. As such, various treatments in the last several years have failed to live up to initial expectations.
Although market forecast models are available, they do not have the ability to measure, weight, and integrate the critical factors that come into play in the development of a medical treatment relative to competing treatments. Furthermore, most of the other software tools that exist in the pharmaceutical industry are designed for use in a particular area. For instance, research-related software has been built to specifically address research needs. Likewise, commercial software products respond only to sales and marketing needs.